HOW TO PREVENT SPREAD OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
1. Isolation. A person suffering from communicable disease should be isolated from other persons so that others do not catch infection.
2. Vaccination. People should be vaccinated against possible infection particularly during epidemic.
3. Sanitation. Proper sanitation should be observed. All waste materials and garbage should be disposed properly. Personal hygiene should be properly looked into.
4. Food and water. Open and contaminated food and water should be avoided.
5. Vectors. All kinds of vectors should be killed and their breeding place should be destroyed.
6. Sterilization. Rooms used by any patient should be disinfected and the articles used by patient should be sterilised.
7. Education. People should be properly educated about the communicability of diseases. particularly at the time of epidemic and the preventive measures should be taken against the spread of the diseases.
Inherited Diseases (Non-Communicable)
Some diseases have genetic basis and these are transmitted generation to generation in Mendelian fashion. There are two categories of inherited diseases : (i) diseases due to error in metabolism and (ii) due to genetic disorder caused by changes in chromosomal structure and frequency of genes.Metabolism in the human body is controlled by series of reactions mediated through enzymes.Production of each of these enzymes is controlled by a specific gene (one gene-one enzyme hypothesis). If any gene controlling production of any specific enzyme undergoes mutation a metabolic block may appear. Because if the particular stage of reaction is not produced the end product of the earlier reaction accumulates as the enzyme normally required for its transformation
to the next product is absent. Phenotypic expression in individual depends upon the end product of a particular series of reaction where a large number of enzymes take part and for which a large
number of genes are involved. In the following scheme, it may be noted that in the normal phenylalanine metabolism if block appearsat step 1, phenylalanine will not be converted to tyrosine
andasaresult of which thereaction will not proceed further. Phenylalanine will accumulate in excess in blood resulting into a disease called phenylketonuria (mental retardation, pale skin. epileptic tendency). Similarly, blockage at step 4 causes excessive accumulation of homogentisic acid that passes through urine. Oxidation of homogentisic acid by air turns urine black. The disease is called alkaptoneuria.